As previously mentioned, systems exhibit various structural states. Some maintain a state of relative health for specific periods, while others suffer from dysfunctions, leading to operational disruptions. Similar to how the human body can become ill and lose its typical functions, any system may encounter crises, disorder, and a decline in energy and natural feedback depending on its structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several factors contribute to system illness, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Disproportionate changes in the growth or decline of system components<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Contagion and transfer effects<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Structural communication breakdowns<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Dysfunctional sub-system operations<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Stagnation due to changing conditions<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Disruptions in governing rules<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Unidentified or cyclical illnesses, especially in social and economic systems<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All systems\u2014whether social systems such as economic organizations and societies, or natural and artificial systems\u2014comprise interconnected elements. Any alteration in one element often provokes resistance from others. This structural phenomenon, known as negative entropy, represents the tendency to preserve the current state. Systems, by nature, resist changes\u2014whether progressive, aiming for transformation and development, or regressive, opposing evolutionary direction. Over time, systems stabilize in their existing state, forming habits and balances, making any structural alteration potentially destabilizing. This structural resistance can be so strong that it occasionally reverses changes, restoring the system to its original state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This raises the question: If systems inherently resist change due to negative entropy, how do they eventually transform, evolve, or decline over time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer lies in the dual nature of systems, governed by both negative entropy (short-term stability) and entropy (susceptibility to change). Entropy facilitates systemic transformation by overcoming internal resistance. If one component’s alteration is significant enough to compel the rest to adapt, the entire system will gradually undergo transformation. Consequently, for a system to avoid dysfunction or collapse, all components must adapt coherently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natural and Organic Systems<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In natural systems, this adaptation often occurs autonomously. For example, in biological systems, when one organ changes, others adjust accordingly to maintain equilibrium. Human bodies rarely exhibit disproportionate growth among organs; holistic, proportional development is essential for overall functionality. Disparities disrupt the system, leading to functional breakdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In sociology, this phenomenon is termed “cultural lag,” occurring when one element in a cultural system changes, but corresponding adjustments in other elements do not occur, resulting in systemic imbalance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every system accommodates structurally consistent and compatible elements. Without these harmonized elements, the system loses balance and becomes dysfunctional. For instance, a traditional rural society reliant on conventional production methods cannot seamlessly integrate advanced industrial tools. If such tools are introduced without corresponding social adaptations, functional disruptions and cultural lag ensue. Consequently, rural inhabitants might migrate to urban peripheries, leading to urban unemployment, crime, and social instability, while rural areas suffer labor shortages and agricultural decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This illustrates the interconnectedness of urban and rural systems, which are open systems with organic ties. National development hinges on transforming rural production and organization, which directly impacts urban systems. Therefore, disruptions in any sub-system can ripple across the entire socio-economic framework, causing widespread systemic disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In advanced societies, rapid adaptability (entropy) facilitates constant transformation and innovation. These societies regularly experience cultural lag due to continuous technological and scientific advancements. However, their high adaptability allows them to quickly realign, turning cultural lag into a catalyst for development and evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast, traditional or underdeveloped societies exhibit strong resistance to change, often enduring prolonged periods of instability and cultural lag following structural shifts. For example, years after agrarian reforms, many developing countries still face the lingering impacts of cultural lag. Similarly, the integration of mechanized tools like automobiles has not always led to culturally adaptive behaviors, as evidenced by inappropriate urban practices (e.g., unnecessary honking) in countries like Iran, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. These behaviors indicate chronic structural imbalances and persistent cultural lag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, structural health or disorder within systems is relative and contingent on their ability to harmonize changes across interconnected components. Advanced systems leverage entropy to foster adaptability, while traditional systems often struggle with prolonged disruptions, leading to persistent structural dysfunctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Open systems interact with external factors, including other systems. Therefore, when there is an exchange of energy and matter between them, structural diseases can also be transmitted from one system to another. Just as the human body can contract viruses and microbes from external sources, including other humans, animals, or even inanimate environments, and vice versa, social systems (like organizations) are not immune to structural disorders from their surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An unstable, disorganized, and diseased economic system in a country affects other social organizations such as families, education, politics, and cultural ideologies, making them unstable and diseased as well, and vice versa. For example, an economic crisis that disrupts and destabilizes a society\u2019s economic organizations or an ill-conceived economic policy that collapses a country’s economic structure impacts all social systems, even the organic systems of individuals. During economic crises, physical and mental health issues increase. Economic recession leads to unemployment, which causes poverty. Poverty and unemployment, in turn, increase crime, corruption, and social ills, ultimately impacting the physical and mental health of innocent individuals who must live within this social system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the mutual interaction of open systems can lead to the transmission of their diseases. A dysfunctional cultural system can destabilize the family structure, and a troubled family system cannot provide an effective educational environment. A flawed cultural system can also destabilize the political system, and all these systems influence each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these systems can be considered primary or foundational while assuming others are secondary and subordinate. Social systems consist of interconnected and interdependent components, all of which have close and reciprocal relationships. Therefore, any change in even one component affects all social organizations in society, especially if the change occurs within its subsystems. Disease, therefore, can spread from one organization to another and from one national social system to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An economic crisis in one country impacts the economic and social systems of other nations, potentially hindering or facilitating economic development elsewhere. Cultural exchange is extensive globally, absent only in non-literate societies or very minimally present. Today, the interconnectedness of countries through the internet has become intricate and complex, making the transmission of diseases from one cultural system to another both rapid and inevitable. Therefore, contemporary societies need sociology more than ever to address social issues by uncovering social laws and implementing effective programs. Consequently, countries that undervalue social sciences or regimes that view these sciences as adversarial face more social problems and structural diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned, the most fundamental condition for a system\u2019s existence is the establishment of lawful, coordinated, and rational connections among its components. If one of these connections is severed or if incorrect and irrational relationships exist among components, the system either ceases to function or experiences dysfunction and inefficiency. For instance, in a social organization, if the relationship between central management and middle management is severed, or middle management does not communicate with operational management, or if the relationship between workers and supervisors is disrupted, the organization\u2019s structure will become disorganized. All parts of an organization must maintain logical, rational, and lawful connections. Any disconnection signifies structural weakness or disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all connections within a system are necessarily correct. In some cases, incorrect relationships can cause structural diseases or dysfunction. Therefore, in systemic sociology, the nature and condition of structural relationships among components must be regularly reviewed and analyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because open systems constantly interact with external environments, they are fluid and subject to internal and external changes. A relationship deemed logical and lawful today may become irrational tomorrow, as internal relationships within systems are dynamic. This fluidity means they can be vulnerable to structural diseases or disorders but can also evolve and adapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hence, assessing the health of structural relationships and examining potential transformation within social systems is a continuous process. For example, in a feudal system, the relationship between the landlord, manager, and tenant, along with the organizational structure overseen by the landlord, was considered rational and functional. However, if this relationship shifts to a worker-employer dynamic, the connection must align with a capitalist system. Resistance to changing laws and relationships in production organizations, especially in developing countries, is a major factor in their economic stagnation and structural disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast, dynamic social laws, which determine interpersonal relationships, contribute to the better formation and functionality of social organizations. Thus, if societal laws regarding ownership, worker-employer relationships, unions, and political parties are insufficient or flawed, structural connections between organizations weaken, preventing essential organizations from forming or causing internal dysfunction. In advanced countries, organizations are established more easily and function more effectively due to this structural dynamism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As previously mentioned, one of the essential conditions for the existence of systems is coordination. For a system to achieve its correct and expected functionality, all its components and subsystems must work in harmony and convergence toward a specific function. For instance, in the organic system of the human body, if the physical, defensive, and hormonal forces are not coordinated to maintain the overall balance of the body\u2019s structure, the system will experience disorder and imbalance, causing the body to suffer from illness, pain, and discomfort. The disproportionate secretion of even a small gland, such as the thyroid gland, a lymph node, or one of the hundreds of active glands in the human body, can result in imbalance and disruption of the entire organic system. If there is incoordination in subsystems, it is impossible for them to function without disruption and disorder. For example, if inhalation and exhalation are not synchronized with the heart rate, or if the circulatory, respiratory, nervous, digestive, and reproductive subsystems do not work in harmony for proper metabolism and, ultimately, growth, the entire organic system of the human body will experience dysfunction, disease, and disorder. The importance and necessity of coordination among the components and structure of a system are evident not only in organic systems but also in all systems. For example, a mechanical system cannot function properly unless there is coordination among its constituent parts. A car can only function or even start when there is harmony and convergence between the spark plugs\u2019 ignition and the compression of gasoline gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Social and economic systems are no exception. Coordination must exist between the components and subsystems in these systems as well. For example, if there is no coordination between the growth and development of healthcare in a society and the increase in labor demand or the decline in population growth, healthcare improvements will lead to population growth, and increased population will cause higher unemployment rates, which in turn will expand social problems. Therefore, improvements in healthcare and medical facilities must be coordinated with an increase in labor demand or a decrease in population growth. Otherwise, the society will face disorder resulting from unemployment, economic stagnation, and the expansion of social issues. In an economic-social system, if the production of even a single agricultural product is not coordinated with the demand for it, this increase in production may unexpectedly lead to a drop in its price, which can cause some producers to go bankrupt and significantly reduce their incentive to produce. Ultimately, this will reduce production in the following year, which in turn will lead to higher prices for that product in future years, higher unemployment due to the bankruptcy of some producers, increased rural-to-urban migration, and the spread of slums in cities. Advanced countries, which are aware of economic laws, strive to control the price mechanism by destroying part of the product\u2019s production to maintain the price level at a point where it guarantees the highest income for producers (i.e., until the demand elasticity equals -1) and align the price mechanism with production levels. Additionally, if in an economic system, the supply of money is not aligned with the national production, an increase in liquidity can lead to higher inflation rates and, consequently, rising prices, which disrupts the economic and social system of society, making it diseased and disordered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An educational system will only be successful and effective if it is coordinated with other systems in society. For example, if a society, without considering the coordination and growth of other systems, focuses solely on educating a specialized workforce without organizing labor in industry, agriculture, and services, the increase in skilled workers will only lead to unemployment among these individuals and eventually brain drain. Thus, despite substantial investment in training these workers, they will be sent abroad due to mismanagement. Therefore, the perspective of economic and social planners should not be partial and one-dimensional; rather, they must adopt a systemic view of the whole system. Otherwise, despite good intentions to improve and expand one part or component of society, they may cause the entire system to become diseased and disordered. Consequently, planning for the development of a social and economic system requires not only good intentions, commitment, and expertise but also a systemic perspective and precise structural organization. Otherwise, despite good intentions and commitment, and the cultivation of specialized human resources, a one-sided and reductionist approach could lead to incoordination, disease, and disorder within the social and economic system. Here, we also question reductionist expertise and compartmentalized thinking. In fact, due to the vast expansion of knowledge, specialization cannot be merely one-dimensional or reductionist. Today, science has expanded to such an extent that an individual, within the limited span of their life, can only specialize in a small part of the vast material and immaterial world. Therefore, to develop society, we must have an organizational, systemic approach to organize individuals and especially specialists. Only organizations, that is, systems, can generate the massive, powerful functionality of their component parts. In this way, the total functionality of the system, independent of the individual parts, generates power and magnitude capable of creating or destroying entire worlds, with even the smallest element, such as an atom, having the potential to shape reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every system is formed or organized to achieve a specific goal or function. However, all the conditions in which the system is formed, as well as all the relationships between its components and the entire system, are variables. In other words, all components and their interrelations, even within themselves, are subject to change. Systems are organized and shaped according to the prevailing conditions to achieve a specific goal or function and satisfy a particular need. Since social and economic systems are constantly changing, the needs of society also change according to the prevailing conditions, evolving over time. What is needed today may no longer be required tomorrow, just as many past needs have disappeared and no longer hold relevance. For example, in the educational system, the function of old traditional schools was once essential, but with the establishment of modern education systems, these institutions can no longer fulfill educational needs. Consequently, although they may have resisted disappearance for a while after the establishment of formal education systems, they gradually faded away. Similarly, in the country\u2019s health system, organizations like the Malaria Control Organization, the Trachoma Control Organization, and the Family Planning Organization once served vital functions, but today, due to changes in the health and treatment landscape or changes in prevailing policies, they have been deemed obsolete and non-functional. Conversely, with shifts in the economic and social status of society, new organizations have emerged that are now necessary, whereas in the past, they were not required and therefore did not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, organizations such as the Informatics Organization or the Cybercrime Organization, in the context of national awareness, or the Nuclear Radiation Control Organization and many others, have been established based on new needs. Therefore, organizations are formed based on needs, and since human or societal needs change over time, organizations must inevitably evolve and find an appropriate structure to address new needs. Otherwise, the social and economic system of society will stagnate, become disorganized, and fall into disorder. While society may have new needs, the existing structures and organization will no longer suffice to address them. When new and appropriate organization is not implemented to meet the updated needs of society, the openness and mutual interactions of social and economic systems at the transnational and international levels can result in foreign organizations fulfilling the material and economic needs of these societies due to the absence of required organizations in third-world countries and the unemployment of human and capital resources. In such conditions, the dependency of these countries on external forces will increase, and they will suffer more from dependency and unemployment as time passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a system remains unproductive and stagnant due to detachment from the realities and the changing conditions and needs of society, it initially resists change due to its structural resistance, meaning negative entropy, and preservation of the status quo. However, after some time, it will face a crisis and collapse, as it will no longer be accepted by the society and will become structurally disorganized, leading to dysfunction. When the founders and managers of these organizations resist change and fail to recognize the emergence of new situations, showing little flexibility to adapt to new societal values, and delay reorganizing their structures, they only exacerbate the crisis and move closer to inevitable and irreparable collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, after the land reforms in 1963 in Iran, we encountered two categories of landowners. One group quickly understood the new situation and invested their property in building manufacturing factories in the industrial sector and cities. The other group, on the contrary, failed to recognize the new societal structure and tried to resist the new values, leading to the first group making significant profits and maintaining their position as the elite class, while the second group eventually faced complete downfall and the destruction of their social and familial status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, society is a dynamic and entirely changing social system. To organize its structural organizations, we must be fully aware of all changes in its value system and the changes that occur over time. This awareness will allow us to implement continuous reforms in the structures, updating and evolving social and economic systems, while always being prepared for changes in structural communication. Otherwise, the system will fall behind and suffer from disease and crisis. We may currently observe such a crisis in the higher education system in the case of the Islamic Azad University. Thus, the authorities and stakeholders in this university must either acknowledge the changing conditions and quickly establish new organizational structures in higher education to remain relevant, or they will disappear within a short time, causing significant damage to the national higher education system. This is the inescapable fate of systems that wish to remain inflexible and unchanged in their existing structures. All systems, because of this inevitability, are prone to destruction and decay, and only those systems that can adapt to new circumstances and create fundamental reforms in their systemic structure will endure. Otherwise, they will inevitably dissipate and disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As discussed in the first chapter, one of the most important conditions for the existence of systems is the establishment of regulated relationships between the components and subsystems. Millions of laws, ranging from physical, chemical, economic, social, nuclear, and more, govern the communication system of a system to ensure its proper functioning without disturbance or disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are unaware of the laws governing the capitalist economic system, such as Adam Smith’s law of supply and demand, Keynes’s law relating savings and investment, the relationship between demand elasticity and producers’ income, Ricardo’s theory of land rent, and many other governing laws of this system, and if we fail to utilize them to control and modify the inevitable negative phenomena of capitalism, such as recurring economic crises, the economic system will fall out of balance, resulting in disorder and instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, if a mechanic fails to apply the laws of physics, mechanics, electronics, chemistry, or other sciences when organizing a mechanical tool, the tool will inevitably face dysfunction. Likewise, a social planner must recognize and apply the laws governing social systems. Disruption occurs in a social and economic system when its organizers and founders, unaware of these governing laws, attempt to shape them or, when disorder and dysfunction arise in the regulated system, fail to address them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, when youth unemployment rises in a country, crime rates, criminal activities, and addiction levels also increase. If policymakers wish to tackle these social issues, they must first create the necessary conditions for employment. If an official attempts to address this problem without understanding these laws, for example, by merely offering advice or imprisoning addicts, they will inevitably fail and exacerbate the crisis, causing further social instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an economic system, there exists a relationship between inflation, the level of liquidity, the speed of money circulation, and the level of production. Thus, to address issues such as inflation and unemployment, policymakers must either reduce liquidity and money circulation or create conditions for increasing production, or adjust all three factors that influence inflation. If an official attempts to reduce poverty by increasing liquidity in the economy (e.g., through subsidy distribution) with good intentions, they will be acting against economic laws. This will inadvertently worsen the economic crisis by causing inflation, rising prices, and the collapse of the economic system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, if actions are taken without regard for the scientific laws in social and economic systems, not only will the systems not be organized, but they will also become agents of disorder and disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it should not be assumed that we have identified all the governing laws in social and economic systems and that simply adjusting the influencing variables will solve the crises. Unfortunately, many of the laws in these systems remain unknown, and even in advanced industrial countries, we still face periodic and unexpected crises due to disruptions in the laws governing these systems. Research and study must continuously be conducted in the field of social and economic systems. This need is not only due to the youth of these sciences or our limited understanding of their laws, but more importantly, it is because of the continuous changes in the conditions governing them. Thus, success will only come to those individuals or countries that engage in more research to understand these laws. These laws exist whether we acknowledge them or not, and they apply to our social systems. However, by understanding and discovering these laws, we can gain greater control over these systems and better manage them with minimal crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned, despite the significant advances in social and economic sciences in the past century, these fields have still not been able to identify and predict all the factors and variables that influence the occurrence of crises and the spread of economic and social diseases. For example, in the history of the economies of countries, especially developed nations, we encounter periodic crises that, while sometimes attributed to factors such as war or the discovery of new resources like gold, remain poorly understood. We still lack full knowledge of the causes and influencing variables of these historical phenomena, namely business cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Samuel Sen writes in his book on economics: “The state of business is never calm and stable. A period of boom leads to a crisis and collapse. National income, employment, and production levels decrease, prices and profits fall, and a number of people become unemployed. This cycle continues until the economy reaches its lowest point. After that, economic recovery begins. Economic recovery may occur slowly or rapidly. It may last for some time, during which demand is high, employment is abundant, prices are favorable, and the standard of living is high. The peak of the boom may last only a short time, merely a flare of rising prices and speculation, after which a dark period of recession and stagnation follows. In short, this is what is called the business cycle.” (Samuel Sen, p. 448, Volume I)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Capitalist countries still remember the recession and stagnation of 1929-33, known as the Great Depression, or the boom period of 1942-45, which culminated in World War II. The question then arises: Why, in a capitalist system, which is based on well-established economic laws, do these cycles of boom and bust continue regularly, even to this day? This issue, namely the incomplete understanding of the factors influencing economic and social systems, suggests that the approach taken by scholars in these fields has not been systemic. They have failed to analyze and understand economic and social systems as integrated wholes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A systemic understanding means that no organization, whether economic or social, can be studied in isolation without considering its connections to other systems. The capitalist system, for example, cannot account for the factors influencing crisis and boom periods without a thorough examination of the social, cultural, political, and even ecological factors that shape economic situations. This is why scholars often fail to understand and fully explain the causes of these phenomena, dismissing them as unknown or inevitable, attributing them to fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The systemic approach is interdisciplinary; it views all systems, especially economic and social systems, as open and interrelated. However, because there are numerous variables influencing social and economic phenomena, no single field of study can claim to have all the answers. A researcher, no matter how capable, will never be able to identify all the influencing factors and reduce the residual variance of society to zero. Therefore, what happens in a systemic study is, first and foremost, a precise understanding of the system, identifying the maximum possible number of influencing factors, acknowledging the openness of systems, and recognizing the mutual impacts that systems have on one another. It also involves keeping the research scope open to incorporate new factors that may influence these systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As previously mentioned, systems exhibit various structural states. Some maintain a state of relative health for specific periods, while others suffer from dysfunctions, leading to operational disruptions. Similar to how the human body can become ill and lose its typical functions, any system may encounter crises, disorder, and a decline in energy and natural feedback …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organizationalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkamran.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Societal Examples and Implications<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>The Role of Change in Advanced and Traditional Societies<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>2. Contagion and Transmission of Disease<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>3. Disruption or Inefficiency in Structural Connections<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>4. Incoordination in the Functions of Subsystems or Their Elements<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
5. Futility and Stagnation Due to Changing Dominant Conditions<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>6. Disruption in the Laws Governing Systems<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>7. Unknown Periodic Diseases, Particularly in Social and Economic Systems<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n